Crusdae, p.17
Crusdae, page 17
The old lion’s rivals were still mistrustful of his leaps.
William, shut in his cabin in the heart of the flagship, spent long hours in meditations and in prayers, waiting for Thibaud Gaudin to join his fleet before attacking with maximum strength. He did not worry much at all now about strategy, seeking to strengthen his shaken faith and to die a good Christian. He at least had no illusion of his chances of success. Without the houbits, his ships would be massacred.
The Tholon brothers, crowded in with the others in the scant quarters of the base installations, had not even the chance for one memorable binge before hurling themselves into this suicidal attack.
uAh, well,” sighed Clement, ”1 don’t understand how we got into this mess. William conquered three worlds and he finds himself robbed of them.”
“Our Lord means to test our faith,” Garin replied. “We Templars came to the height of power; now we must pay for our pride. An old saying has it that the Tarpeian Rock is near the Capitol. We aren’t the only ones to know disillusionment. Many others before us have conquered vast empires and lost them.”
“All the same, the Pope has gone too far,” growled Red Guiot “Give a planet to the Hospitalers and the Teutons, that’s bad enough, but to keep one for his personal use . . . Not to mention those filthy monks of the Inquisition, who stick their noses in here wanting to rule everything on Oddh. There've already been twenty so-called heretics burned by those butchers! So far as I’m concerned, Christians or not, I’d throw the scum out!”
“Mind your words, my brother,” the Templar chided him. “You owe complete obedience to our Holy Father the Pope, even if his decisions seem debatable to you. You’re only a worm without great importance in the eyes of Our Lord. How could you judge then, when you’re ignorant of so much?”
“S’death! maybe I don’t know everything, but I'm sure that without William, no one would have these damn planets, and I’m sure that the Baphomets would have invaded the Earth a long time ago. So all that’s platitudes and we . . . we’re going to lose our head9 for it”
Garin did not answer. In spite of himself he could not stop thinking that his brother was right, only he owed a blind obedience to the Grand Master of the order, and if William ordered him to die in battle, he would throw himself blindly into the fray.
A week later, the fleet lifted majestically into the starry heavens. Each vessel had been prepared for this last battle. Certain of them, crammed with explosives, had been devised as fireships to try to blow up a link in the chain of satellites, thus opening a passage to their attack, but no one had much confidence in it.
Thibaud Gaudin was headed directly toward Baphom and must arrive near the Baphomet fortress almost at the same time as William’s squadrons.
Behind the armada as it left Lyzar, John of Villiers and Conrad von Thierberg followed at a distance, like jackals shadowing a caravan to eat the dead.
The voyage was dotted with various unimportant incidents. A few ships collided and a nervous Templar fired a salvo at a Teuton ship which was following a little too close for his liking.
The armada then arrived in sight of the fortifications around Baphom. Their configuration was simple: the satellites were set in a quincunx pattern circling all parts of the planetary system of Baphom, forming a sort of saucer above and below the plane of the ecliptic.
The direct path to the lair of the demoniac Baphomets consisted then of attacking head on into the plane of the planetary system. Of course, that would be the sector best defended, five successive lines of fortified stations barring their way.
But it was there that William chose to make his first thrust, for behind the satellites, the enemy fleet would only have a narrow area to deploy and all their fire could be concentrated into that mass.
But before launching his ships the Grand Master must handle some preliminary operations. He must in particular sweep the vicinity of mines.
The quark cannon were very useful in this task. They let them work outside their range of the defenses and reduce these deadly machines to dust, making large gaps in the mine field.
A brave enemy would have tried to engage the minesweepers with swift ships, but the cowardly Baphomets, trusting in their defenses, let it go on without reaction.
When that work was finished, William prepared for the attack. The ships of Thibaud Gaudin had rejoined him, and bis forces were now complete. The Grand Master listened to the grim report which his faithful friend made him on what had happened on Earth. As it happened, all the kings, all the emperors had decided to make an end of the Templars, deeming that they would never dare turn their thunder weapons against Christians, and the Pope not only let them do it, but secretly encouraged them.
There was now left only one outcome for the honor of the soldier-monks: to die fighting the miscreant Baphomets.
The Grand Master had the attack order sent to his squadrons. This time there was no question of sending the Turcopole and Kubla’s light ships in first
These were the Templars themselves, supported on either wing by the French and the English, who met the deluge of projectiles belched out by the satellites.
Conforming to the established plan, several fireships were among the contingents in the van. This tactic proved double-edged. Sometimes one of them exploded prematurely in the heart of a formation and the neighboring ships, gravely damaged, became an easy prey to the guided missiles. But from the fact of the abundance of targets, the fire coordinators found themselves swamped and could not recognize these fireships in the heart of the mass of Terran vessels. So almost half these destructive engines reached their targets and a breach was opened in the barrier.
Seeing this the Templars gathered hope. Now in place of undergoing fire of powerful armored forts, they were going to be able to fight against other ships on equal terms.
The brave soldier-monks plunged into fire gap. Their assault was so headlong that the vessels at point came within firing range of Baphom and got off several missiles that hit the capital, sowing consternation among the Baphomets, who had thought their city invulnerable.
At this instant if the Hospitalers and the Teutons had rejoined the Templars, the battle would doubtless have been won. Alas. John of Villiers and Conrad von Thierberg did not judge their rivals diminished enough to come to their rescue.
The squadrons of the Baphomets then had the chance to regroup and to launch three counterattacks, one frontal, meant to protect Baphom, the other two in a pincer movement to cut off the Terra ns from their rear guard and encircle them.
This time too the combat was long undecided. Before them the Templar lines bent under the shock, but held. Clouds of missiles and antiquark beams made ravages among the two adversaries without deciding the encounter.
On the flanks, French and English had to bend back, then reestablish new lines where they could hold without retreating an inch.
From one side and the other, however, the losses were considerable and finally the Baphomets, more numerous, were winning the encounter.
William, whose ship at the heart of the combat set off volley after volley, was wondering if he should not retreat He still had his light ships in reserve, which might break the deadly circle, but the Grand Master hesitated to use his last reserves.
Then Houen-Lun, who was still aboard the flagship, came out of his silence.
“Rejoice, William!” he said. “Tarim has just entered contact with me. We are now quite near to Baphom, where he is in Marco Polo’s company. Your faithful Venetian has learned some news of import from the harem slaves. Zolial the Baphomet emperor has become rather talkative under the influence of a houbit. He revealed a fearful secret There exists, at little distance from this solar system, a sort of maelstrom in space, a microscopic black hole, infinite access to unfathomable depths. Once it menaced Baphom, but Baphomet scholars succeeded in stabilizing it without being about to get rid of it. Here are its coordinates. If you succeed in passing the installations which maintain it, you can cast it onto the planet of these pitiless creatures. But you must act quickly, for some few enemy ships protect that place.”
The Grand Master saw at once the advantage he could get from that incredible information. He immediately ordered Kubla to disengage his rear guard while he himself maneuvered as if he were beating a retreat
Thanks to heaven the Templar forces were still sufficient, and soon all the survivors were back at their starting point, outside the belt of satellites.
There William established a solid line of defense composed of Templars, French and English to block the gap.
He then sent commands to his faithful Thibaud Gaudin, and he himself with the Turcopoles and Mongols peeled off at all speed toward the site Marco Polo had told him of.
Soon the Baphomets’ secret installations appeared on the screens. They faced satellites bristling with antennae, set in an octahedron in the distance. Of the blade hole he saw nothing. In his delirium, had Zolial lied?
Sonz hastened to explain to William that that was no wonder, that these strange formations, tiny objects of incredible density, trapped all material objects, all radiation passing near them. Once plunged into that vortex, they disappeared forever and no one blew exactly where they went It was always a black hole of small dimensions. One could pass through a world, making a tornado at its point of impact and another at its exit And in that there was a slight problem ... for if the course of this black star by some ill chance were stopped at the heart of a planet it would see all the matter in it absorbed like water by a sponge, and the world would disappear, leaving nothing but a tiny navigation hazard of enormous density, a deadly new trap of slightly increased dimensions.
But already the enemy ships charged with its defense were rushing toward the Terrans.
A merciless battle ensued.
The Mongols’ swift ships did wonders. They whirled around their adversaries, feinting, threatening to flee and returning to the assault on an Isolated enemy, turning with a mad address to escape opposing fire.
This time numbers were on the side of the Templars, for the Baphomets, trusting to the small size of the black maelstrom, had never thought that their enemies could discover it, and they had only gathered light forces there so as not to draw attention to it.
In a little time the last defenders were put out of action and Sonz, even before it was all over, took over the controls of the installation.
These had not been destroyed for a good reason: they alone kept the black hole at a distance from Baphom.
The Odeous signaled William to move all his ships out of a direct line with the foul planet, then with a grimace of hate, he hit the controls, changed their settings to aim the monstrous projectile to its objective, and put the whole device into motion.
At once the black maelstrom shot inexorably toward Baphom. Only special instruments let them see it, for its intense gravitational field was not visible to the naked eye.
Paradoxically it seemed to distort space and time, for it went at a truly incredible speed.
Epilogue
Directed by the sure hand of the Odeous, the deadly object headed right for the cursed planet In front of it the Terran ships, warned by William, headed out of its way, but the enemy ships had no time to react
Suddenly seized in lightning-fast turbulence, Baphomet satellites and ships were hurled one after the other into that gaping maw where matter compressed to infinity and infinite depths.
On Baphom, the emperor, warned of the cataclysm, hastily embarked in vessels loaded with treasure which had been prepared to such an end, and the foul lords tried to take to space and flee.
Unhappily, their ships, slowed by their heavy load, could not get far enough fast enough. Already the dark mass, momentarily surrounded by incandescing clouds and lightnings, was rushing down on them.
William, who had followed near the whirlpool, watched the end of the enemies of the human race.
Then the malefic object struck the surface of Baphom. A cyclone devastated the neighboring countryside, while at the antipodes, a similar phenomenon was in action.
Now the black micropoint, restrained by its traverse of the planet, had clearly slowed, and was traveling less swiftly than a ship.
In the command station of the flagship, the Templars were ecstatic. Against all hope, the Lord had decided to save them! It was a miracle like that at St John at Acre. When they were about to go under, Almighty God had helped them.
They all looked toward William of Beaujeu. On him devolved the glory of the victory.
Suddenly the rough soldiers blanched. The Grand Master had vanished.
A telltale winked on the control panel, revealing the terrible truth at once. The brave Templar, his mission accomplished in this lower world, had taken his place in a lifeboat and was headed right for the maelstrom.
All appeals were vain. The ship’s communications were disconnected by William, who was relentlessly set on his fate.
The screens showed him in his mad course, looking with a gaze of ecstasy on the clouds which still surrounded the black hole. A few shining atoms whirled in a dance before falling forever into the abyss.
The nightmared eyes of the hero’s faithful stared also at the strangely twisting clouds.
Then for a brief moment, they had a fantastic vision, as a cross of light shone out in space.
It vanished so fast they all wondered if they had been dreaming. William had seen it before dying. For him it was a sign: his sins were forgiven. An expression of peace touched his face before he vanished forever.
The dark meteor quite swiftly departed the area and vanished into the infinities of the heavens.
The surviving Templars, assisted by the Hospitalers and the Teutons, quickly destroyed the few enemy forces remaining in space.
Thibaud Gaudin, accompanied by John of Villiers and Conrad von Thierberg, left his ship then on Baphom. The devastation the black hole had made was fortunately localized. Few of the slaves were dead, and Marco Polo and his companions had not suffered from the cyclone, for they had been sheltered in the palace, which remained intact.
Thibaud Gaudin solemnly took possession of Baphom in the name of the Order of the Temple and this time no one dared contest his decisions.
But John of Villiers and Conrad von Thierberg still had doubts about the death of their rival. Sonz assured them that the ship, though caught in the whirlpool, had escaped the deadly maelstrom: William might have survived. The Odeous thus proposed to guide them to the very place where, he said, they might find the Grand Master, shunted off in space.
The squadrons of the Hospitalers and the Teutons left Baphom. Before leaving, John of Villiers declared he would goon see on tins place the representatives of the Holy Inquisition.
Thiband Gaudin had been astonished by Sonz* insistence, but he had not the technical knowledge of the Odeous and he dared not contradict him; since Sonz affirmed that William’s lifeboat was still wandering in the void, he must be telling the truth. Thibaud accordingly sent a powerful squadron in pursuit of the Hospitalers and the Teutons.
The ships went off on the track of Sonz and his companions; suddenly they all vanished from the screens.
Thibaud Gaudin then understood the Odeous’ stratagem. Devoted to freeing his people from the yoke of the Inquisition, he had led the torturers of his people right into the dark whirlpool.
The Chapter of Templars, reunited sometime afterward, confirmed Thibaud Gaudin as successor of William, and the new Grand Master made some important decisions.
The Templars had finished their crusade. The foul enemy had been destroyed.
On all the freed worlds, the tribunals of the Inquisition were abolished. Odeous, Ethir, Orpheds and Lyzogans recovered their ancient liberties.
The Tibetans, the papal legate, the Hospitalers and the surviving Teutons were brought back to Earth, where they were traded for imprisoned Templars, and then the ships left again for Baphom.
On that return, Thibaud Gaudin took with him all his ships. He directed them into the shape of a cross around the Baussant flagship and the squadrons disappeared into the infinite heavens.
On board echoed a chorus of deep voices. “Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini tuo, da gloriam..."
BAPHOMET’S
METEOR
Translated by Bernard Kay
By the dawn of the 14th Century, the Crusaders' Order of the Knights Templar was well on its way to the control of Europe — enormously wealthy, a secret society stronger than many monarchies. By the middle of that century, it was brutally suppressed on the confession of some of its members that it was a conspiracy intending to conquer the world at the orders of a demon named Baphomet.
That is history as our Earth knows it.
But the only sort of “demon” enlightened
modern men would recognize would be an
extra-terrestrial voyager with the tools of a
higher technology than medieval men knew.
And what if Baphomet had been just that?
Who then would have called the tune?
BAPHOMET’S METEOR is an enthralling
excursion into the world that might have
been—and may still be— somewhere else.
DEDICATION
Au docteur Jean-Claude Labur the, historien érudit, dont les conseils m'ont été précieux pour la rédaction de cet ouvrage. En témoinage d'une ancienne et sincère amitié.
-P.B.
Chapter I
☆
1275 A.D.
William of Beaujeu, Grand Master of the Temple, had every reason to be satisfied. The Commanderies of France, England, Italy and Spain were flourishing. On the other hand, the situation in the Holy Land was disturbing.
Leaning over the stem rail of the ship, William thought* fully contemplated the attenuated wake of foam on the jade and emerald billows.
